Hey Vegeta! A Tribute
by Medusa77
Summary: This is a tribute to my favourite Dragonball character, our favourite asshole – Vegeta! If you're like me, you've took quite a ride with the Saiyan Prince over ten years of your childhood. You watched this guy from violent narcissistic villain to an accidental hero. So much of his story takes place offscreen! Isn't it fun to speculate?
1. Chapter 1

He was watching.

Bulma was no warrior, but she didn't need extraordinary senses to feel that particular heavy presence hovering just beyond sight. Trunks was almost asleep, curled up on his belly, sucking on the end of his long brown tail the way a human baby might suck on its thumb. He was barely three months old, and already he was consuming nearly five litres of milk a day. He couldn't walk or talk yet, but when he threw a tantrum (and that was often) he was capable of smashing everything around him. He was an extraordinary child in more ways than one.

She'd thought she was ready for anything, but she wasn't. Trunks nearly killed her several times before he was even born. Towards the end she spent most of her time in bed, moving less than the child inside her. She didn't dare risk natural childbirth, either, so Trunks was cut out of her, still asleep til the first gust of cold air hit him-

-then he screamed.

He nearly destroyed everyone's eardrums. Acting fast, remembering with sudden clarity an offhand remark Vegeta once made, Bulma seized her new son by the tail and snatched him from the doctor so that he was dangling upside down. And immediately the shriek became a muffled, much more manageable little wail.

Stupid monkeys, she thought, and found herself both laughing and crying at the same time.

Once he was born, the tension of the situation evaporated. He was a spunky, irascible child, and won over Bulma's mother and father quickly. Fortunately. For it was no easy task dealing with Trunks and keeping up with her work in Capsule Corp, and if not for her eternally sunny mother's assistance, Trunks would have destroyed the whole house multiple times.

"Saiyans!" she often found herself screaming in frustration as she tried to calm down a small child who had destroyed his own crib in a fury. "Goddamn stupid fucking Saiyans!"

And why did you fuck a Saiyan, then, Bulma? She demanded of herself in these exasperating moments. You thought he was hot and you have a damned soft spot for badasses. You couldn't resist the ultimate badass, stalking around your house in a skintight jumpsuit. You didn't think one fling would hurt anyone.

He's a Saiyan, dammit! Once was enough! When did he – or even Goku – ever miss a target?

And of course he wouldn't give a shit. Even Goku had treated the appearance of a son with a kind of nonchalant glee, as if Gohan was a new puppy. This one, the homicidal, genocidal, violent, unstable, intelligent, maniacal one – she'd be lucky if he didn't offhandedly decide to obliderate them all.

No, but that wasn't fair. If there was one thing she had noticed about Vegeta, it was that his violence was dictated by need. He killed because he was ordered to, because he wanted something from someone, because he had been pissed off. He was not his old master; he didn't kill simply because it was fun – although he enjoyed destruction, to be sure. Still, on Namek he had killed a whole village of Namekkians to get a Dragonball; he had killed several of Frieza's generals to protect his interests; but he hadn't killed Krillin or Gohan, and he had taken one look at her, dismissed her as unimportant, and left her alone.

She had to confess to herself now that he had rather intrigued her even then. It helped he was good looking in that odd way – built like a bullet, small and swept back, with a permanent rippling tension in his compact powerful body. It helped too that he had killed Zarbon right in front of her – the staggeringly handsome Zarbon who transformed into a staggeringly ugly monster, exploded into part of the landscape with one tremendous spine-tingling blast from Vegeta's palm. The expression on his face was memorable, the little satisfied smirk, the little cocky bastard.

It was Bulma's experimental nature which had doomed her. She had been with Yamcha for so long that it had simply started to bore her. He had once been a little dangerous and exotic; now he was just, well, good ol Yamcha. And she had of course watched Goku grow up; she had seen him as Oozaru and as a Super Saiyan; she had felt that amazing tingle go up her spine when he channelled and released energy in earth-shaking blasts, and it had always been in the back of her mind. What would it be like to fuck a Saiyan?

And then a Saiyan dropped out of the sky into her backyard. More importantly, it was a dangerous and exotic Saiyan, a Prince no less, and she had immediately shoved him into a shower and seen him, for the briefest of flashes, entirely naked. Stupid woman, she thought to herself often. How old do you need to grow to understand the concept of self-control?

"You can come in, you know," she said quietly as she gazed at Trunks.

At first nothing happened. Vegeta, like Goku, and to an extent Piccolo, had an energy signature – a ki radius – so powerful that even if they were just sitting around, people had a tendency to look over their shoulder. One didn't need honed senses to detect that something unusual was present.

That oppressive sense grew gradually stronger, and then quite suddenly he was there in the shadows, two glittering eyes and a flame of black hair. She hadn't seen him up close since he, well, since that moment. Despite the fact that she expected very little of him – and probably he of her, if he bothered to think of the issue at all – she felt a little tickle in her belly anyway. She had, for one extremely memorable moment, seized that crazy black brush of hair in her fists and cried out like an animal. She was familiar with Goku's unruly weird mane, each strand so thick it was like wire, impossible to bend in any other direction and resisting every blade including industrial garden shears. Vegeta's hair was even thicker, and although she had applied enough force to tear out a man's scalp, not a strand had fallen from his head.

It was only afterwards she realised she had rather stupidly put herself in danger of being crushed like an insect. Til now the wall against which they had propped themselves had two sizeable chunks in it, the shape of his fists. He had grabbed the sheet metal wall and not her body, and she didn't know whether it was a conscious choice, but it was the only thing that had saved her from paralysis and death.

She regarded the shadow just outside the window with the usual mixture of exasperation and fascination which the vicious Saiyan Prince always aroused in her. He gazed back at her silently. "Just get inside, will you?" she snapped irritably. "I don't like people hovering around me. Literally."

Still he didn't say a word. It had occurred to Bulma more that once that Vegeta had offhandedly killed anyone who had been remotely lippy to him. She had snarled and snapped at him frequently enough, in staggering disregard for her own life, and he had yet to raise a hand against her, confining himself to the same thing he often snapped at Goku: "Shut up."

Finally his feet landed on solid ground, and the hairs on the back of Bulma's neck settled down. So much power it was ridiculous, he and Goku and now Gohan too; so much latent energy contained in flesh and blood bodies. They could turn it down and hide it, but to mortals like Bulma it was still a subtle disquieting vibration hovering around them.

"So you're a Super Saiyan now," she said when he still made no remark.

He had been looking at Trunks; now he looked at her. His face was an expressionless mask, which was astonishing considering how maniacally gleeful he had been on the battlefield just that morning, enveloped in golden fire.

He hadn't saved her from crashing when the energy wave hit her transport module, but Bulma was not fazed by that, though the odd stranger who had saved her seemed unusually agitated. Firstly, she hadn't been expecting him to notice or care; secondly, they both knew perfectly well there was no shortage of people to help her. There had been no need for Vegeta to, well, betray himself, if he had been inclined to at all.

"Did you know you have a son?"

Finally he spoke. "I knew when I made landfall."

"Did you know when you left?"

"Yes, but I didn't think he would live anyway."

"Why not?"

It was hard to read Vegeta's expression when he was not in battle (the exact opposite of Goku), but she could have sworn he looked a little surprised. Finally he asked, with a tinge of exasperation, "Why did you keep it, earth woman?"

"Keep...? You mean the baby?"

"No, I meant the pimple on your chin. Yes, the goddamn baby."

His customary sarcasm didn't provoke her usual annoyance because she was so stunned by the question. "Why... why wouldn't I?"

"This conversation is going in a circle." He looked down at Trunks again. "You do realise this is the half-Saiyan bastard of an evil genocidal general? And the new Prince of a nearly-extinct race of violent bloodthirsty warriors?"

"Yes," she said, cutting right into his icy sneer. "I don't care."

He regarded her irritably. "Woman, do you understand what you are getting into? What are you going to do with him?"

"Raise him, of course. He's my son."

"You can't raise a Saiyan child. If Kakarot's brat is anything to go by, a half-Saiyan is even more difficult to handle. You can't feel his power level. I can." His teeth flashed in the dim light. "That is my son in every way."

"What's his power level?"

"Three thousand." The grin grew even more. "I was born at two and a half thousand, and Frieza was so afraid he made my father give me up to him."

"Lucky you."

"Shut up." Sudden rage in his intense black gaze. "Listen to me, for once. Kakarot doesn't know shit about his Saiyan heritage, otherwise he would never have allowed his woman to carry his brat. Saiyan children are violent and unpredictable. They have no control over their power. They need to be trained. Kakarot was lucky because he had the Namekkian to guide his son. You have no-one. You are only a weak Earthling. And before you tell me Kakarot's female did fine, this one is not Gohan."

"Is he stronger?"

"I don't know what Gohan's power level was at birth, but since his mother is still alive, it was probably lower than... than.. what's his name."

"Trunks, you asshole."

"Yes, whatever. What kind of stupid name is that?"

"It's a traditional name in my family, and don't you fucking complain, it's not like you're going to stick around anyway."

"True." Vegeta once again regarded his new son. Bulma studied his expression as much as she could in the darkness. He appeared to be appraising the child, his head tilted to the side. "I'm surprised you survived him."

"I almost didn't. But I have resources."

"Lucky you," he snapped back.

"I don't know why you're so worked up. Your mother did fine."

"My mother died, you idiot." The sharp words gave her a sudden jolt of terror. "There wasn't even a body to bury. I incinerated her and the crew. The room was still burning til my father came in and grabbed my tail."

"I remember you mentioning that. I grabbed Trunks by the tail too."

"That's why you're still alive. I'm glad somebody fucking listens to me."

"Believe it or not, I always listen to you. Even when you're screaming about Kakarot."

"Shut up." But it was said reflexively, almost absently. "When will the gravity room upgrade be finished?"

"It'll take a while. I ran the specs through and while it's possible for the power core to produce that level of pressure, the structure itself won't hold up to it. You'll just be standing in the middle of a big hole charging into the core of the earth."

"You have to stabilise the struts with a strong enough material of course."

"Of course nothing, Prince Smarty Pants. There isn't a material on earth which could withstand that level of pressure. I'll have to synthesize it and it'll take time."

"Here." Clunk – lying on the ground at her feet was a suit of his white Saiyan armour. "Use this."

"That's no use. I saw how easily it smashes. Everyone was wearing it on Namek. It was next to useless."

"Really, Miss Smarty Pants?" he parroted, folding his arms across what was now a truly formidable chest. "It hasn't occurred to you that this might be different from the suits you saw on Namek?"

Bulma stared at him. "How could it be different? Frieza's armies are gone. The war engineering units are no longer operational, are they? Who's left to synthesize battle suits?"

"I did, you stupid cunt."

"You?" she stared at him, goggle eyed. "You're not an engineer."

"No, I am a fucking Prince. I don't see how that makes me a fucking nitwit. You've been around bloody Kakarot too long." He pushed the suit with his toe. "It's almost infinitely elastic, like the old suits, and nearly indestructible. It adapts to the environment around it. It will hold up under the pressure as long as the increase is gradual, and will revert back to normal density when the pressure it turned off. Take it, use it, and build my goddamn training room before Kakarot fucking gets ahead of me again."

And then, all at once, he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

It was an odd thing, how they all just came to accept that there was a sociopathic madman – mad alien – let loose in their home, spending most of his time banging around in her father's pet project, the gravity simulator. Bulma's indefatigable mother even cooked for him, leaving vast meals in the bare little guest room he had unceremoniously claimed as his own – the same one Bulma had originally put him in when he first crashed on Earth in pursuit of Goku.

Dr Briefs was a scientist to the core; he ignored Vegeta's general surliness and mildly brushed away the knowledge of the Saiyan general's vicious past, in favour of tinkering with all the gadgets and gizmos Vegeta still had as remnants of his time with Frieza's army. Nothing was more important to Dr Briefs than learning and developing new technology. From the very first day he encountered Vegeta, he had nothing to say except, "Your space pod is fascinating!"

And Vegeta, much to everyone's intense astonishment, not the least his own, found himself explaining how everything worked. When she thought about it, Bulma realised she shouldn't have been so surprised that he could engineer his own armour. Vegeta had once been Frieza's favourite general, hurtling around galaxies with no more than one or two companions to take out entire civilisations. If Vegeta had not known how to fix a broken space pod, or repair broken armour and weaponry, or work out the technology of other races, he and his men would have been marooned somewhere long ago. He had survived thirty years with nobody to help him but that immense dolt, Nappa (one couldn't imagine Nappa fixing anything), amid a squabbling army full of jealous officers ready to take his place at any moment. He was nothing if not a survivor, and survival requires intelligence.

Vegeta did not hurt either Dr Briefs or his wife. He occasionally threw massive tantrums, but having Bulma as a daughter had desensitised them to tantrums of any capacity, including planet-shattering ones. And he mostly lost his temper in the confines of the gravity simulator, which absorbed everything he threw at – or in – it.

Largely Bulma ignored him. She had too much on her mind, between Trunks, the android threat, and then finally, the knowledge that the purple-haired stranger who had come to them earlier was her own son from another timeline.

It was comforting to know – and she said it aloud, with glee – that her son would grow up to be such a tall, handsome, strapping specimen. More importantly, he was clearly not his father. He was not an asshole.

Then again, Vegeta had died in that future, so he'd had no time to teach Trunks to be an asshole. Bulma was not entirely sure whether which option she preferred.

Meanwhile, baby Trunks was growing fast, and growing hard to control. Worried about the whole Oozaru threat, Bulma had had Trunks' tail removed. Vegeta noticed this about a week after it was done, but his only reaction was sheer exasperation.

"Did you forget the Namekkian has destroyed your moon?"

"I didn't want to take any risks."

"You goddamn earthlings. See how you'd like it if I fucking cut off your ear." But that was it. He disappeared into his round of train, eat, sleep, train, eat, sleep. He had nothing to say about his son; either the current baby Trunks, or the tall, sad-looking grown up version.

A day came, however, when Trunks wouldn't stop crying. He refused to eat, refused to be picked up (he was strong for a baby, and when he kicked it really hurt), destroyed another crib, and raised his voice to such a yell that Bulma couldn't get near him through the sheer wall of sound. She was alone, trying to work in her home office; she made frantic attempts to call Chichi, but no-one was home. Then, predictably enough, an angry Saiyan prince kicked down the door (and most of the wall) and roared,

"STOP THAT FUCKING RACKET!"

This did not help. Trunks' wails became so high pitched and so immense that Bulma clapped her hands over her ears and cried out, her head bursting. She actually started to black out; then the wailing started to ebb.

Trunks no longer had a tail, so Vegeta could not hold him upside down by it any longer. Instead he had wrapped one large, powerful hand around the child's body and was holding it aloft, glaring. Trunks was glaring back out of his intense purple irids, his little fists and feet flailing. The force of his blows could bruise Bulma, but they of course had no effect on an angry Vegeta.

"What's wrong with him, Vegeta?" Bulma demanded, not quite daring to approach.

"He's angry."

"At what? I've tried feeding him, changing him, cuddling, everything!"

"Cuddling? He's not a stupid human child. He's half-Saiyan."

"That's so bloody helpful! Tell me what to do, you fool, if you want to get back to your precious training!"

"You had to cut off his tail. You stupid woman."

And before she could stop him, before she could even think, Vegeta had slammed the baby into the wall.

Trunks' head bounced off the wall alarmingly. He continued to yell in fury, apparently unhurt. Vegeta did it again – blam. Bulma shrieked and flung herself at Vegeta, who simply smacked her aside as if she were a fly. Blam – a third time into the wall. Now the wall had a dent in it, and Trunks had a bruise already starting to spread across the back of his head. He fell quiet.

Then, to her immense astonishment, he started to gurgle and laugh.

Vegeta impassively stared at the giggling baby in his fist. "Feel better?" he asked his son wryly. "Are you going to fucking shut up now?"

Trunks laughed, giggled, and squirmed in his grasp. When Bulma tried to grab him he started to whimper, and with an exaggerated put-upon air, Vegeta took him back again.

"I don't... what..." she stammered, watching her small precious son wriggling contentedly about in the grip of his maniac of a father.

"The reason you yank on a Saiyan child's tail is to make it feel pain. Then it calms down. Saiyans are not humans. We thrive on pain. You travelled for years with Kakarot when he was a child, you said. Didn't you notice that?"

Bulma could only stare at him. "But I can't.. I can't throw him into the wall like that! It'll hurt him!"

"Then you shouldn't have cut off his bloody tail, woman! They don't grow back, as you know damn well!"

With startling gentleness, Vegeta put the baby back into what was left of his ruined crib. "Did you do all this damage, whelp?" he asked the child. "Well done." Trunks, having been put down, instantly went to sleep.

"He... I... he's asleep."

"He expended all his energy to protect himself when he hit the wall. Now he's calm and he will sleep. When he recovers, he will get stronger and grow faster." Vegeta said all this as though speaking to an idiot, which incensed Bulma.

"Are you telling me Saiyan parents threw children into walls to get them to grow? What happened to you? They couldn't find a hard enough wall?"

"No, as a matter of fact, they could not. Also, woman, unlike my mutilated child, I still had my fucking tail."

And whoosh, he was gone again.

Vegeta forgot about Bulma and Trunks and everything else throughout the battle with the androids, as did Goku. "Definitely a Saiyan thing," Bulma muttered to herself as she worked on trying to find the damned Dragonballs again. Even Goku scared her these days; he was such a far cry from the feisty little boy she once knew. Namek had changed him in a subtle way; meeting Vegeta, perhaps, had also changed him. Goku's origins had always been murky before Namek; he was a funny little boy with unusual strength and power, and a monkey's tail; he turned into a giant rampaging ape at the full moon, and unlike Vegeta he'd never had control over his Oozaru form.

A power level of 2! Barely that of a human!

Vegeta, screaming in the gravity simulator as he beat himself half to death. It terrified Bulma just watching (and she was often watching, partly just to be sure the simulator didn't blow up again, and partly because somehow she gave a shit if he accidentally killed himself). But Goku had a talent Vegeta did not have, which the Prince had figured out. The increase in power Goku received when he recovered from serious injury was far higher than that of Vegeta's. Gohan had inherited this trait, so the harder Goku and Gohan trained, the stronger they eventually became. It was a trait shared by all Saiyans, but Vegeta simply could not catch up. As long as they were all still in active combat, he would never catch up, and it drove him insane.

A Saiyan must be pure of heart to become a Super Saiyan!

Well, Goku was pure of heart. Vegeta was not. Yet... yet wasn't he? He had said it himself – there are different kinds of purity, different ways to achieve a single goal. He certainly had purity of purpose.

Yes, Namek had changed both Saiyans. Vegeta's last confession to Goku – of which he was now heartily ashamed, as he was of any betrayal of weakness – had created a strange sort of bond between them. Vegeta resented it deeply, resented Goku's persistence in regarding him as a friend instead of an enemy, resented what he perceived as the insult of Goku's pity. Goku, on the other hand, had suddenly found himself bearing a greater burden than ever; the heritage of a dead race, the terrible history of a whole world wiped out, and the even greater weight of all the Saiyans who had been left enslaved to Frieza, along with the last Prince, never to be King. (And he never called himself King of Saiyans – who was there left to crown him?) Saiyans ,the most hated and feared race in the universe, used by a megalomaniac as living weapons of mass destruction, foremost among them a tiny five year old Prince.

Goku had never known of his grim ancestry; and when he did know it, it nearly broke him, as it had broken Vegeta long ago, albeit for different reasons. Goku didn't normally think hard or deeply about things; but after Namek, after everyone was safely home and alive, he went abruptly into a period of quiet that had worried Chichi and Gohan deeply. Piccolo was the only one who had spoken to him at that time.

"He's taken it personally, what the Saiyans have done. He never had a history before; now he has one that is almost too much to bear," Piccolo explained one day in a rare bout of candour, pitying poor Gohan's distress.

"I know it doesn't have anything to do with me," Goku said one day to Bulma, relenting from his lonely isolation enough to eat a huge ice cream sundae she had brought with her. "But... but it kind of does, doesn't it? Nothing separates Vegeta from me but sheer luck of the draw. Radditz was my brother, and he was more like Vegeta than he was like me. If I had been born five years earlier, like they were, I would be one of them. Or I would be dead."

"You are nothing like Vegeta or Radditz, Goku."

"Aren't I? Are you so sure? I know I'm not very smart Bulma. You were always the smart one. But I think I lost something on Namek that can't be replaced. When I buried Vegeta I felt like I was burying a brother. I should have hated him – I know he hated me – yet I couldn't. It would have been like hating myself."

Then, all at once he suddenly perked up. Goku was resilient as india rubber, as Bulma well knew, and everyone thought he had just gotten over it. He went back to training, eating and sleeping, went back to alternately adoring his family and forgetting they existed, went back to being Goku, in other words. Bulma, however, now believed something different.

She knew, though he had not expressly said so, that Vegeta had come hurtling down into her backyard that day because he was after Goku. He hadn't exactly come to destroy Goku; he had come to reclaim the pride he felt he had lost the day Frieza killed him. Destroying Goku was the means to this end.

Goku had started recovering, and going back into training, some two months before Vegeta's return to earth. Piccolo had started sensing Vegeta's approach some time before that. Piccolo was more sensitive to ki, but Goku could not have been far behind. He had realised Vegeta had been brought back to life – accidentally, it was true, for he was included in the very general description of 'people killed by Frieza and his men on Namek' who had been brought back by the dragon's wish. Goku had cheered up when he knew Vegeta was not only alive, but coming to get him. Goku had actually been looking forward to it!

And then Trunks came dropping out of the sky too, and the two Saiyans' plans – however unvoiced – were shelved.

Goku actually appeared ecstatic, the other fighters said, when Vegeta boasted he had also achieved the Super Saiyan ascension. It had annoyed, but had not surprised Vegeta in the least. They understood each other perfectly!

Bulma growled, deep in her throat, and was briefly startled by how much she sounded like Vegeta himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey Vegeta."

"Go away, Kakarot."

He didn't of course. It was dark now, and the city was far behind them. In the forefront of their consciousness they could feel Cell, in his perfect and terrible form, roaming the earth, building an arena. Tenkaichi Boudoukai! It brought back memories for Goku, even though this would be the worst possible version of that great combat tournament. He had made many friends out of enemies who faced him there – Tienshinhan, Yamcha, and most notably, Piccolo. He had met and loved Chichi there – with some slightly disastrous results. He had won that tournament more times than any other fighter. But then again he had been the only Saiyan there.

He now understood from Vegeta that the reason he had become so powerful, from having been relatively weak as a child, was his constant participation in Tenkaichi Boudoukai. Being constantly beaten, battered and bruised, and recovering from each fight, had made him exponentially stronger and stronger. It was different from Vegeta, who had been so powerful even as a child that he had been hard-pressed to even find an equal, much less get beaten enough times to make a significant difference. Besides which, Goku had had a grand childhood, bouncing around the world looking for Dragonballs with Bulma. Vegeta's childhood had been, well, frankly horrible.

There, but for the will of Frieza, stood Goku himself, scowling at the landscape.

If Vegeta himself was aware of what Goku was thinking, he never showed it. Goku, unlike most of the rest of his friends, was entirely unworried by the odd relationship between Bulma and Vegeta. He was quite possibly the one person to know each better than they knew themselves.

"Where do you think Cell is now?"

"You can feel him as well as I can, Kakarot. He's in the mountains, fucking around making pretty decorations for his arena."

Goku laughed, in the disarming way that always drove Vegeta wild with irritation. "I wonder when he'll tell us to begin." Vegeta was silent.

Goku tried again. "Hey, Trunks is growing fast." Still silent. "He'll be as powerful as Gohan one day, I bet."

"Was there something you wanted, Kakarot, or are you just here for my scintillating company?"

"Why are you standing out here anyway? Mirai Trunks really wants to talk to you."

"That's why I'm standing out here."

Goku laughed again, which finally made Vegeta turn around. "Goddamit, Kakarot, leave me alone!"

"Nope. Not gonna do that."

The answer took Vegeta by surprise. He liked to think of Goku as a foolish bumbling clown who happened to harness vast power, but he knew very well it was a lie he told himself. Goku was not bright, but he was sharp. One did not survive the battles Goku had without having some wits about one.

And he looked uncharacteristically serious – almost as if he was about to go into battle. When he looked like that, Vegeta almost liked him. Unlike his son, Goku – Kakarot – was still a Saiyan at heart. His natural instinct kicked in when he faced an enemy. Just standing still, his power levels rose til the very air was straining to contain him.

"Vegeta, you realise we may not survive Cell."

"Speak for yourself, clown. I fully intend to crush him and scatter his ashes across the galaxy."

"Stop that. There's nobody here but you and me. And I don't buy your act, your highness." He grinned into Vegeta's livid face. "I never do."

"I will kill you one day."

"Yes, sure. Vegeta, I know you're worried. You'll never admit it, but you are. Even with four Super Saiyans, Cell knows he can defeat us. That's why he's fucking around, as you call it." The obscenity was startling in Goku's normally gentle, childlike tones. "He's playing us like a cat with a mouse."

Vegeta had gone back to contemplating the landscape, expressionless. Goku simply sat down at his feet, cross-legged, smiling faintly. He could feel the synergy between them, the last two living Saiyans. He could also feel Vegeta trying desperately to shove him mentally away. But in every sense, Goku was hard to get rid of.

"Why do you think there are so many of us now, Vegeta? Super Saiyans, I mean?"

"I don't fucking know. It's the story of my life. I kill myself to become Super Saiyan, just to catch up with you, and boom, another two appear, and one's voice hasn't even bloody broken."

"Trunks – your Trunks – will probably get there even younger." Goku paused. "So will my second son."

"Your... your what?"

"You haven't been around Chichi lately, have you?"

"I try to avoid your shrieking harpy woman."

"Yea, you now have one of your own." Vegeta looked resolutely away, which meant he had inadvertently blushed, and Goku grinned to himself. "Chichi's pregnant again."

"You shouldn't have allowed that to happen," said Vegeta, with uncharacteristic sobriety. They were both behaving oddly that evening, Goku reflected. "You know human women can't easily carry Saiyan children. Or at least, you didn't know before, but you should know now, damn you."

"She wanted this."

"And generous loving Kakarot will give his woman anything she wants? You're a fool. If she dies whelping a second pup for you-"

"Vegeta, I don't know these things, don't you understand? And it's too late now anyway. She survived once, and Bulma survived Trunks. They'll find a way."

"Kakarot, for the last time, leave me the fuck alone, will you?"

"No. Calm down. Not everything needs to be a battle, you know."

"Then hurry up and spit out what you want to say."

"So you can go back to productively standing here like a statue, I guess. I wanted you to tell me more about Saiyans."

"Why?"

"I want to understand what will happen after we're both dead. What happens to Trunks, and Gohan and his new brother? I mean – when they grow up? When they reach adulthood?"

"Assuming they survive? How should I bloody know? I have a grand total of one halfbreed son. Only two now exist. Who the hell knows what they're going to be like?"

"Haven't there been other halfbreed Saiyan kids?"

"I don't know, goddamit, Kakarot."

"You see, I think we're all capable of becoming Super Saiyan because we're the last of our kind. It's a survival mechanism. Our bodies somehow understand we need to live as long as possible."

Vegeta said nothing again, but this time he said it very eloquently, by staring down at Goku in astonishment. Goku did not wait for the older Saiyan to comment.

"I think Trunks and Gohan, and the new baby, will become a new breed, even more powerful than the Saiyans, because it's a survival instinct too. What is Saiyan in them will fuse with what is best about being human-"

"There's nothing worthwhile in being human."

"Are you quite sure of that, Vegeta? I notice you have failed utterly in destroying this planet, just as Piccolo did before you. You could do it anytime – you could do it right now if you sneeze too hard, and leave Cell to fight it out with just the four of us on bits of space debris. You know, I'm not really that stupid, Vegeta. I know how hard it is to rein in so much power. I wake up every morning hoping I haven't had a nightmare and destroyed half the continent. When I hug my wife I have to concentrate to make sure I don't kill her. When I swat a fly I break furniture. Even when he was little, Gohan could destroy a whole forest in a tantrum; fortunately he didn't have many of those."

Vegeta produced a small grunt, which Goku interpreted correctly and laughed again. "Yea, Trunks is a bit different. He's yours and Bulma's and so he's naturally bad-tempered. But my point is, Vegeta, you have to do all that too, and you have to do it consciously. I mean – when I married Chichi, I wasn't even at a tenth of the strength you are now. I know Bulma is tough, but the fact that you didn't, you know, absolutely rip her apart-"

"I am going to punch you in the face if you don't stop talking."

"You can if you want, you know it won't hurt me."

Vegeta kicked him in the face instead; Goku grabbed his ankle and dragged him down beside him. Vegeta, for reasons he himself did not know, actually sat down. The two Saiyans were now side by side cross legged, one comfortably leaning back despite the footprint on his cheek, the other with his arms folded, resolutely looking the other way.

"You once told me I should fight to the end, for the pride of the Saiyan race. Do you remember that, Vegeta?"

"You mean when I was fucking dead? Yes, I do."

"You believed in me, in that moment."

"It's not like I had a choice."

"I think you actually like me, Vegeta. And you want to kill me at the same time. It must get confusing."

"Fuck you."

"Apart from the sociopathic tendencies, I think you're kinda cool too."

"Where the hell did you learn the phrase 'sociopathic tendencies'? And again – fuck you."

"So you haven't answered my question."

"You haven't actually asked one, you idiot."

"Yes I did. What do you think will happen to our sons, if they survive Cell? Do you think they will grow more powerful than us? Do you think they will be able to defend this place like we do?"

"You mean like you do."

"Like we do, Vegeta. Even if you do it just to spite me, you do it."

"Fuck-"

"Answer the question, Vegeta. Turn off your ego for a second or two."

"You're an asshole."

"And you're the Prince of me, aren't you?"

Vegeta almost smiled, but caught himself in time. "Fine. If they survive, yes. I think they will eventually be more powerful than we are. There is one problem, though. Who will train them if we are dead?"

"Well... Piccolo trained Gohan."

"If we don't survive, the Namekkian is hardly going to live, Kakarot. He cannot sneeze planets out of existence. Also, your brat is well above his power level now. It was like Nappa allegedly training me. I could beat him to a pulp by the time I was nine. What sort of training is that? And who will teach them how to be Saiyans?"

"I never knew how to be Saiyan."

"You know anyway, Kakarot," said Vegeta bitterly. "To be Saiyan means to be forever struggling to get stronger, faster, better. As a Saiyan, your son is a disaster. He only trains to be with you."

Goku looked sharply round at Vegeta. "What?"

"You're an idiot," murmured Vegeta. "You just said it yourself. The Namekkian trained your son. Why didn't you do it?"

"I was..."

"Training. Of course you were. It's what Saiyans do. That's what I mean. Your son does not train to make himself a better fighter. He trains to be like his father. It is not a Saiyan trait. I didn't have a bloody father and I didn't care. Mirai Trunks didn't have one and he wanted to fight anyway. He now knows his father is an asshole and he is still there fighting. I can't fucking get rid of him. But your son trains so that he can be with you, and be like you. It has nothing to do with himself. If you are gone, if he has nothing to fight for, he will stop fighting."

Goku was still looking at Vegeta. "That...sort of makes me sad, a little."

"Boohoo to you."

They were both silent for a moment. Goku was thinking about Namek; about the man sitting next to him, who had been broken to pieces and was lying in the dirt, dying, with his last breath entreating the only other Saiyan left to avenge their race; to finish the job he had failed in. In that moment Vegeta had dropped everything – all his bravado, all that ego – and given Goku a glimpse of his naked soul. Goku knew Vegeta would now give anything to take back that moment; he had built the walls of his pride higher than ever, enveloped himself in a blaze of raging arrogance and bad temper. Vegeta would break himself if he continued to keep building brittle walls. For as long as he had left to live, Goku intended to keep trying to knock them down.

"We're not that different, you and I, Vegeta."

"F-"

"-uck me? Yea. But we're not, you know."

"I will definitely kill you."

"Cell will beat you to it."

"I'll kill him before he does."

There was another silence that seemed almost companionable, at least to Goku, perhaps because for once Vegeta was not either trying to kill him or trying to kill himself. "It's a pity," Goku sighed at last. "When the sun rises, you're going to go back to being an asshole, and nobody will ever know we had this conversation. I like you better this way."

"Fuck you," repeated Vegeta, but this time it was almost – almost – without rancour.

"You know I won't go away, Vegeta. I'm part of your life forever now."

To his surprise, the Prince of Saiyans merely grunted.

Then, quite suddenly, Goku was sitting alone on the plateau.

He smiled, rather sadly, at the retreating blaze of light already almost over the horizon. Vegeta wasn't actually faster than Goku. He was just a lot more sudden. The five minute friendship was over; Goku was astonished it had even lasted that long.

I'll be proud to die with you, you arrogant bastard, he thought, and you'll never tell me, but I bet you will be too.

Trunks had never expected much from his father. He hadn't missed him much in his childhood, partly because he had grown up in a world where you were lucky to have one surviving parent. The Androids' playground covered half the earth, a razed and rampantly burning wasteland. Humanity had been reduced to bare survival; families were a luxury.

His mother – the older, much more worn and weary version of this fearsome young Bulma he now knew – didn't talk much about the past, because it hurt to remember. She was a formidable woman, resilient and fiery, but sometimes even she broke down when she started remembering her friends. She was often bitter about the fact that they were almost all dead, all these powerful, terrible warriors, two of whom could harness the power of a supernova in the palm of their hands – all of them had been killed, leaving her, the weak powerless human woman, all alone with a child to raise in the middle of an apocalypse.

She almost never talked about Trunks' father, the Saiyan Prince Vegeta. Trunks knew, vaguely, that he was the result of a single silly romp in a dark room. What neither of them knew – what, indeed, nobody ever did really know – was what Vegeta had thought of them. Trunks sometimes believed his mother never loved his father anyway, anymore than he had loved her. Her descriptions of him were hardly flattering, upon the rare occasion she did talk about him.

When Trunks actually did meet Vegeta, therefore, he was already expecting to be disappointed. Even so, he was hurt. Vegeta largely ignored him, which wouldn't have been more than he had been led to expect; but occasionally Vegeta turned upon Trunks with a savagery that was like nothing like the young man had ever experienced. "Get away from me you half-breed bastard," his own father had snarled into his face.

He had been perfectly ready to leave Vegeta alone, and continue his mission with Goku and Gohan (after all, his mission had been to save Goku, not Vegeta). And then he noticed something.

It was a very, very small something. He, like everyone else, had already noticed there was almost no interaction between Vegeta and Bulma, notwithstanding the baby's constant presence. They did not speak (unless Vegeta was annoyed by the baby's wailing, or Bulma was annoyed that Vegeta had caused the wailing). They did not touch. They hardly looked at each other.

And then he saw it.

It was a glance. It wasn't anything more. He hadn't saved her when her hovercraft went crashing into the ground; he had claimed, furiously, he had better things to think about than that stupid woman and her ridiculous child. Everyone else ignored his rant, clearly accustomed to it; Bulma seemed perfectly indifferent to it, even startled that Trunks was bothering to care. And then, just as everyone was looking away, just as Vegeta was powering up to race off into the horizon, Trunks caught it out of the corner of his eye.

He, Vegeta, the mighty Super Saiyan prince, turned to look at the stupid woman and her ridiculous child. Bulma looked back at him. It was an exchange barely a heartbeat long – and he was gone.

He had stopped to make sure she was all right. He hadn't left until she responded. And nobody had seen it but Trunks. Indeed, nobody could have seen it but Trunks, firstly because Vegeta moved so fast he was hardly visible once in motion except to another Super Saiyan, and secondly because Trunks was the only one familiar with that particular expression on his mother's face. It was a wry, Yes, we're fine, get going.

Trunks was the son of two stubborn, suicidally persistent people. Once he saw that glance, he became determined to break Vegeta. You do care, and I will make you show it before I leave. I will bring that back to my mother, who has nothing else left to remember you by. I will get to you.

So he started addressing Vegeta as "Father", which seemed to have no effect whatsoever; until he realised that to accept being called "Father" (and Vegeta did in fact respond to it, if he was in the mood to respond to anything at all), Vegeta had to recognise Trunks as a son.

Trunks tagged grimly after Vegeta. No amount of abuse, physical or verbal, dissuaded him. It was a tough, thankless vigil, requiring the patience of a mountain and the thick skin of a, well, of a Super Saiyan. Vegeta never struck him, but he pushed him away, shoved him aside, looked right through him, ignored his existence; in the hyperbaric time chamber he refused to allow Trunks near him, forcing each Saiyan to train alone.

There was a distinct mental connection between them, as a Saiyan parent and child, and to keep Trunks out of his head Vegeta built a massive defence of sheer savage denial. Everything about him screamed Get Away From Me, and as time passed Trunks started to feel the edge of desperation in it. He knew he was winning. He was going to break Vegeta.

"Father, do you want an egg?"

They were all staring numbly at the television set in Bulma's breakfast room. It was a beautiful day. Except for the fact that a genocidal, staggeringly powerful bio-engineered android was going, at any moment, to announce his plans for the destruction of the planet on global TV, it was a wonderful time of year, filled with flowers and sunshine. The grand mass of humanity, oblivious to the doom hanging over them, had all drifted off on holiday. Trunks had never seen such a happy, contented world, or such a close-knit and affectionate extended family as these people gathered at Bulma's sumptuous table.

Vegeta had maimed, even killed, a number of the people at the table. Neither he nor they appeared to care one way or another. They had absorbed Trunks easily into their circle; Vegeta remained standing in a corner every day, snapping and snarling whenever anyone spoke to him.

Trunks' question dropped into the middle of the morning's chatter like an unexploded bomb.

Bulma and baby Trunks were not in the room to diffuse the tension. All movement stopped. Yamcha stared at Oolong, who stared at Master Roshi, who stared at Puar, who stared at Trunks. Then they all turned of one accord, and stared at Vegeta.

He was sitting on a window ledge, arms crossed, and had been glaring out at the sky as if its blueness offended him. Between him and Trunks, they had already consumed enough food to feed a family for two weeks. He didn't seem to hear his son's question, lost in his own world, as he often was.

"Father, do you want-"

"No."

"But you like eggs. You've only had four. You usually have nine."

Vegeta finally turned and looked at his son. Trunks, apart from the purple hair, was the splitting image of him; the boy's difficult life had even given him the same deep furrow between his harsh eyebrows. Even though he was smiling slightly, he looked sad. He fully expected to be rejected, but he was going to keep asking anyway.

Vegeta had enormous willpower, but the very thing he was proud of most could betray him. Though he did not move, though not a muscle in his face twitched, the air suddenly seemed claustrophobic, filled with a curious charge, an almost imperceptible vibration. So much power, contained in such a small frame; sometimes it escaped the complete control of even a Super Saiyan will.

Every single person in the room, but most of all Trunks, could feel the raging silent battle being fought, as Vegeta got down from the window ledge and silently left the room.

"What the hell was that?" muttered Yamcha uncomfortably.

That was me, breaking my father, thought Trunks as he ate the egg himself.

Mirai Trunks' last thought was – well, you wanted it.

When the great glowing bolt went ripping through his chest, Trunks did not die immediately. I am so stupid, he thought as a billowing agony started spreading through him. I felt him. I knew it was Cell. If I had just trusted my instinct... and now I'm fucking dead. Just great, Trunks. Way to end your mission.

Saiyans take a while to die. Vegeta could have told him, except that in Trunks' future he had died before he had a chance to do or say anything of value to help the younger Saiyans. Vegeta himself knew all too well, as did Goku, that a Saiyan's body was always frantically trying to repair itself. A Saiyan could be broken to a pulp, every bone shattered, every internal organ shredded, and he would still take a while to die as every cell battled to put itself back together. When the effort was futile, the result was a long, agonising death.

I'm dying. I'm dying. It hurts.

The world was going grey. It didn't matter, after all, did it? In his world, Gohan was dead. His mother would not last much longer. The world itself wouldn't. Why bother? He had even failed to save this world. It was all-

-what is that-

-that is-

-RAGE

That's my father, realised Trunks in shock. Vegeta hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, hadn't come near him, but Trunks felt it – a screaming hammer of rage building in the air, imploding into itself, exploding outwards into Trunks' own consciousness. It was blind and wordless and desperate and full of – full of-

HE KILLED MY SON

HE KILLED MY SON!

And then, in the last moment of consciousness, as he felt his father's ki rush up into a fiery swirl of grief and regret and unbelievable anger, as the earth shook with the force of the Super Saiyan's unreasoning charge, Trunks realised: he had broken Vegeta. At last.

Well, you wanted it, he thought wryly. And died.


	4. Chapter 4

"Hey Vegeta."

"Go away, Kakarot."

The two Saiyans looked at each other. Goku chuckled. Vegeta pretended he hadn't wanted, for the briefest second, to smile.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"This? It's a halo."

"The fuck do you have a halo?"

Goku shrugged. "All souls seem to have one, if they were good people when they lived."

"Does it actually do anything?"

Goku scratched the back of his head, grinning. "Nope. Just bobs around."

Vegeta grunted.

Goku only had one day. Vegeta was frankly surprised to see him here. No doubt, one day in heaven was a very, very long day; still, all his loved ones were there, his wife and two sons, his oldest dearest friends. And in this quiet moment he had come to look for, of all people, Vegeta.

"You're always moping in a corner," said Goku, as if he had read Vegeta's mind. He probably had, in a way. "I thought you'd be cured of that by now."

"I thought you'd be cured of being an idiot. I suppose we're both disappointed."

Goku grinned. "I've missed you."

"Fuck off."

"Even that. There's nobody really worth fighting around here. Everybody's too nice. There's nothing like a friend who hates your guts to help keep your edge."

There was a silence, which surprised Goku, who was expecting a 'shut up, Kakarot'. Then Vegeta said quietly, "I know."

Goku studied his friend-who-was-not-a-friend. "You seem different, Vegeta. How's family life treating you?"

There was an even longer silence. Then Vegeta said very softly indeed, "Damn you, Kakarot."

This, for some reason, was much worse than 'shut up' or 'fuck off'. "Is something wrong?"

Vegeta barked a mirthless laugh. "I.. don't even know how to answer that question, Kakarot, you fucking bastard. There are days I wake up and believe you died just to piss me off. I am Vegeta, Prince of all three miserable halves of the Saiyan race. I lived only to defeat you, and you go and fucking commit suicide."

"I had to do it-"

"-and it didn't even fucking work. Cell still came back. He still killed my son, and he nearly killed yours."

"But he didn't, in the end. I always knew Gohan would defeat him."

"He did, and what is he doing now? What did I tell you before, Kakarot? Your son once lived to be like you. He trained to be with you. You're dead, and he's now an idiot. And what am I? What have I become? I'm a fucking house husband."

"Congratulations, by the way. I didn't think you'd actually get married."

"That is not the point," growled Vegeta, over the flush rising on his face. "I am a Saiyan, Kakarot! The Prince of all Saiyans! I live to fight! Or... I should. I just... I can't even... oh fuck it all. You won't understand."

In fact, he did. "Vegeta, I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you all by yourself. I didn't have a choice at the time."

"Don't be disgusting. I'm not married to you."

"You know what I mean."

He did. "Fuck you, Kakarot," said Vegeta wearily. "See you in the arena."

Did you miss me on purpose, or did you... miss me?

Bulma, for the first time in everyone's experience, was utterly silent. They were all worried, but she didn't care. Out there her best friend was engaged in a furious battle with her husband, a battle so tremendous the ground was shaking, the sky was flashing, and the repeated sonic boom of two warriors that could move faster than the speed of light was deafening everyone for miles around.

He knew she was in that part of the stadium when he destroyed half of it, just to taunt Goku. "He's under mind control," Krillin tried to comfort her, but Bulma wasn't fooled. She had been in close contact with that particular mind for a good long while now, and she knew damn well nothing in heaven and hell could 'control' it.

He had missed killing her by about seven feet, no more. Vegeta never missed a target, certainly not one that was literally the side of a building. He hadn't looked, but he didn't have to. Bulma had learned to finally pick up what the other fighters could sense so easily – the disquieting hum of a powerful Saiyan mind, hunting out another's presence.

He'd known exactly where she was standing; she had felt him looking without actually looking. But had he aimed to hit her, or had he aimed to miss?

To everyone else, the death of Goku was a terrible tragedy. To Vegeta it was much worse. The bottom dropped out of his world. There was no purpose to his existence, if there was no Goku. Kakarot was his friend and enemy, his rival and partner, his most envied companion and his most hated foe. There on the brink of finally, utterly self-destructing, Bulma had put their baby son in his arms... and somehow Vegeta came back to life.

"I want him to be stronger than Gohan," Bulma said to him directly as he stared at her, having instinctively grabbed the child (she had hurled Trunks into his chest as if the babe were a football; Trunks took quite kindly to rough treatment).

"...What?" he muttered after a moment. He'd been sitting on his favourite window ledge as usual, scowling at nothing. Sheer reflexes had kept Trunks from being hurled out the window, but then Bulma trusted Vegeta's reflexes.

"Trunks. I want him to be stronger than Gohan. Think about it, Vegeta. He's the son of the greatest Saiyan warrior now living, and the most brilliant human engineer on this planet. You are a prince and I am a genius. He's going to have brains and power and immense wealth. He's a halfbreed just like Gohan, but he was born with a higher power level. There's no reason he shouldn't be stronger than Gohan. I want him to be the most powerful warrior on earth."

Vegeta just kept staring. The baby snuggled against him and yawned.

"Well? Don't just gawk at me. Tell me if you'll do it."

"Do what, you perplexing woman?" he demanded. He had never yet addressed Bulma by name.

"Train Trunks, of course. I can't do it. Piccolo's all wrapped up in Gohan. And Gohan is too young to train anyone right now."

"You...do realise Gohan is more powerful than I am. He's more powerful than Kakarot when he died." There was a note in this unusually calm statement that was almost one of sadness.

"But is he a Prince? Can he tell Trunks everything he needs to know? About Saiyans, about your history, your biology, your heritage? Does he have forty years' of combat experience to pass on? Power alone isn't everything. You are still the greatest Saiyan warrior now living, because you're the only one left who actually knows how to fight."

"Gohan-"

"Gohan threw a tantrum. He always has to, in order to win a battle. That was hardly a fight. Why am I the one trying to convince you that you're better than Gohan?"

She folded her arms and stepped back, unknowingly mimicking Vegeta's favourite pose, when he held the child back out to her, gripping the snoozing Trunks by the scruff of the neck. "I won't take him back if you won't train him. What's the use of a having a Saiyan son if he doesn't learn to fight?"

"Why should it be my responsibility to train your damned pup?"

"Everyone knows he's your son, Vegeta. How would you feel if he ended up some... some wimpy scholar?"

They stood there for a long moment, facing each other, Vegeta still holding the baby out in front of him as if Trunks was a bag of potatoes.

"Take him back, woman," said Vegeta at last, so wearily, so uncharacteristically quietly, that Bulma actually felt her heart break a little for him. Bulma knew herself well – she was a selfish, spoiled, arrogant, bad-tempered, vain little bitch, unaccustomed to thinking about anyone except herself, and now her son. She'd fucked the Saiyan to gratify her curiousity, and kept his baby to gratify her whim. It was perhaps because she had that much in common with the proud Saiyan prince that she had even that much empathy for him.

It was Trunks' arrival which finally started to humanise her; and in loving her son, she found herself being unexpectedly, reluctantly, drawn towards his father. He was a very dangerous man, but she found this exotic; she was almost amused sometimes by the staggering extent of his self-absorption.

She remembered, suddenly, a dream she'd had when she was searching for the Dragonballs on Namek. Vegeta was there, first a terrible enemy, then a reluctant ally; it was where she had first seen him. She'd had an odd nightmare that he had found her, and was threatening her, enveloped in a burning aura. She remembered the feeling she'd had, that mix of terror and awe.

The Vegeta she was looking at now inspired neither terror nor awe. He looked angry – well, he always looked angry – but he also looked terribly alone. Because, of course, he was. His only true equal was dead.

"You'll have to drop him. I don't want him, if he's just going to be a useless lump." It wasn't entirely a lie. Taking care of Trunks was frankly exhausting. And unlike Chichi she had a research and engineering empire to run. "Or you can take him away with you. I suppose you'll be leaving anyway, now poor Goku is gone."

"Where else would I go?"

The question was spoken almost to himself. As Bulma continued to refuse to take Trunks from him, Vegeta started to simply put him down. Trunks did not like this; once the pressure of his father's powerful fingers let go, he seized Vegeta by the leg instead, and started to bawl in fury.

"Get him off me."

"Get him off yourself. You could kick him into orbit if you wanted to, I know that perfectly well. But you're not doing it. You want to be with your son, Vegeta. You would love to make him more powerful than Gohan. You know Goku can still see and hear us. Goten and Trunks are going to grow up at the same time. Goku's going to be watching every time Trunks beats him up."

Vegeta laughed. The sound startled them both, for Bulma had not intended to provoke it, and Vegeta had not intended to make it. Bulma looked at him, now smiling faintly; he was resolutely looking away, as he usually did if he was having trouble controlling his expression. Muscles were twitching along his sharp pointed jawline as he struggled.

"Well, Prince of Saiyans? Have we got a deal?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I thought it was clear. If you stay, and train your son into the mightiest warrior in existence...you get to stay, and train your son into the mightiest warrior on existence. I'll build you a bigger and stronger gravity room, and you can live here as part of our household."

"You want me to be... your babysitter?"

"Where else would you go?"

Trunks had by now climbed up to Vegeta's hip (mostly ignored by both parents), but the steep slope of Vegeta's ribcage was beyond his mountaineering ability. He hung onto Vegeta by the waist and wailed with thwarted rage.

"God, you're fucking persistent," muttered Vegeta, finally looking at him.

"I wonder where he gets that from. Do we have a deal, Vegetasama?"

Vegeta never did reply. Instead he kept looking at the baby, stuck to him like a suckerfish. Then, without another word, he took the child into his arms, went back to his favourite window ledge, and sat right back down to contemplate the landscape again. This time, however, there was a child snuggling up against his chest.

The very next day, Bulma almost had a heart attack to find that Vegeta had taken Trunks from his crib and flown off somewhere so far out that to locate him she had to call on 18. The ridiculously powerful cyborg could track even further than Capsule Corp's satellites just by standing still for a few minutes with her head tilted. She found them – father and son – on the top of a mountain.

"What?" screamed Bulma.

Krillian laughed. "I remember that mountain range! Piccolo trained Gohan there, and we fought Nappa and Vegeta there when they first came to earth. Did you, er, did you know that Vegeta was going to train Trunks?"

"Yes, but... not now! Trunks is less than a year old!"

18 shrugged. "I don't think that matters with Saiyans. Technically, I'm also less than a year old." She tilted her head again. "I think the mountain has just been turned into a plateau."

And that was how it began.

It took a great deal of bickering and arguing, but by and by they found a rhythm of sorts. Vegeta hauled his son off, unceremoniously, every day at dawn. He was made to carry a transmitter which Bulma built based on 18's tracking mechanism; the transmitter pinged every five seconds as long as Trunks was still alive and unhurt. Bulma didn't bother to put a pinger on Vegeta, seeing as the only people capable of injuring him now were Gohan (buried deep in study) and 18 (buried deep in learning how to behave as little like a world-destroying machine as possible).

In the evenings Bulma got her son back, fortunately tired and happy, if rather bruised and bumped sometimes. Trunks was much easier to handle when he was sleepy and satisfied, and true to his blood, he was only satisfied after a fight.

Bulma didn't want to know how Vegeta was training his son; she had seen Piccolo train Gohan, and she did not doubt Vegeta was a harder master. He always handed Trunks back to her as if he was a dog, holding him out to her by the back of his shirt. Trunks learned how to fly very quickly, and eventually when Vegeta let go of him he simply drifted gently to the ground, even though he might be fast asleep.

By the time he was two years old, Trunks adored his father. Bulma just had to trust that the feeling was reciprocated.

Bulma had also found excuses to move Vegeta from the guest room to the main house, and from there into the room next to hers, and then one night she woke up and he was curled up in bed beside her, naked and glistening. His skin gave off a phenomenal latent heat, like Goku's, and it was that which woke her. One couldn't sleep for long next to a furnace, even if one was drunk. And she wondered gloomily what she had done. Again.

Vegeta shifted in his sleep; every muscle rippled lazily. She was like a damn kid locked out of a candy store, Bulma realised wryly. When she finally broke in, she just had to eat enough to make herself sick.

"Either tell me to go away or go back to sleep, but quit wriggling around, woman," Vegeta snarled without opening his eyes. "You keep waking me up."

Go away, or go back to sleep. He'd accept it either way. The decision was hers.

Bulma made the most momentous decision of her life. She went back to sleep.

Vegeta never left her bed again – perhaps because she never told him to. He was simply there again the next night, and the next, and the next, and then it was time for Trunks to start school (a terrifying proposition for a child who by then could rip the roof off the building if somebody stole his chocolate), and then they built another gravity simulator – together – and then- and then-

"Bulma," he said one day, which made her drop her calibrator, because he had never, never, never called her by name before.

He had come into her workshop after his daily training, just before Trunks would be home. He often did come in, and Bulma knew it was more out of curiousity about what she was building than for her companionship. She was, like him, exceptionally irritable when she was concentrating on her work, and even Vegeta avoided her sometimes when she was in her workshop. Her feelings were too strung out.

It was after an interesting day of dismantling old galactic army scouters that they'd created Trunks, at the back of a reinforced weapons hangar. She couldn't read the language and numbers that appeared on the screens, so he had to translate them for her, and explain how exactly they worked, and why they exploded after a certain energy level when the core became too saturated. To demonstrate he had closed his fist over one of the dormant cores and nonchalantly powered up, engulfed in flame; the core instantly exploded in his fingers.

For some reason she'd found that incredibly sexy. Three glasses of wine had finished the job.

"I... what... are you talking to me, Vegeta?"

He blinked, perplexed and exasperated, his usual state of mind around Bulma. "Is there anyone else here named Bulma?"

"I didn't think you even knew my name."

He regarded her as if she were crazy. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I... never mind. Did you want to ask me something?"

"How do you get married?"

She sat down very suddenly. Fortunately there was a chair beneath her. "W...what?"

"Here, on earth." He was looking at her as if his question was something entirely unremarkable, like 'where is the teakettle?'. "Saiyans used to do blood rites but you probably wouldn't like those."

"I... are you asking me...do you want to get married?"

"Do you?"

The directness of it was mind boggling. "Do you mean, to you?"

"If you have intentions of marrying someone else at this point, I will tear his heart out and eat it before your eyes." He stood with his arms folded, shirtless and gleaming, and Bulma found herself simply flabbergasted. A half naked Saiyan Prince was proposing to her, rather as if he was offering to make her a sandwich. "Well?"

"Well...what?"

"Yes or no, you idiot woman. Do you want to get married? If you do, you will have to tell me how, because I haven't a fucking clue."

"Vegeta, do you know what you're asking? I mean... do you understand what that means, here on earth?"

"We pledge to live together and fuck only one another til one of us dies or gives up on the other. Have I got it about right?"

Bulma had to laugh, despite everything, which made him produce his almost-smile, quickly smothered. "I...yes, I guess you have."

"So do you want to? You don't have to, you know. Don't look so cornered."

"I'm not! I'm just... startled. You're very...sudden."

"I'm a sudden sort of person. You may have noticed? Yes or no, hurry up. Then you can get back to your..." He waved his hand dismissively at the new hovercraft she was building (one that wouldn't crash if hit by an energy burst).

"I...I... okay."

"All right. Come on then."

He held out a hand, still encased in a white training glove. Mystified, Bulma took it. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know. You tell me. Where do earthlings go to get married quickly?"

"Er... er... City Hall?"

"Hold tight."

Bulma didn't like flying. Yamcha and Goku and Krillin had all carried her in flight, but only if it was absolutely necessary. She didn't like heights and she didn't like dangling in mid-air. Vegeta did not carry her pickaback like a romantic hero; he'd slung her like a sack over his shoulder and taken off, just like that. He wasn't going very fast for him, but even so she could hardly breathe, and when they landed on the steps of City Hall she was nearly hyperventilating, though it had only taken him thirty seconds to get across the entire city.

It was the most amazing flight of her life.

And so Bulma was married in her greasy overalls, still carrying a wrench, to Vegeta the Saiyan Prince, who fortunately had his shirt somewhere about him. It was over in five minutes – it was highly irregular, but she was very rich and Vegeta was very... persuasive.

And that was that.


	5. Chapter 5

It was all Goku's fault. Goku, and fucking Tenkaichi Boudoukai. Stupid martial arts tournaments full of stupid useless fighters. Bulma had thought it would be a great idea to see how Trunks was doing, whether or not he really was on his way to becoming the mightiest warrior in existence. As time passed, and Trunks grew and thrived, turning into what was essentially a happier, more well-adjusted version of his father and mother, it seemed as if Vegeta had almost forgotten the fiery rivalry between himself and Son Goku. He still trained, because he was Vegeta, but he poured most of his energy into his son.

Trunks thought his father was a god. On the surface Vegeta had not changed much – he was still bad-tempered, arrogant and vicious, but so was his wife, after all, and so to an extent was his son. Trunks disliked being hugged, kissed or touched, except by his father – who certainly did not hug or kiss him. The little boy was cocky, almost rude, full of self-importance; but also full of joy. His best friend and greatest rival was little Goten, Goku's second son; Goten was terrified of Vegeta, partly because Trunks was full of gleeful stories like: "I fell down and Daddy put his knee on my chest and said, 'get up you little halfbreed, blast me off and get up or I'll break your ribs', and so I fired and fired and fired at him til he was all black and blue but he still wouldn't let me up, and then I kicked him in the balls and he jumped up and called me a sneaky son of a bitch, and he was very pleased!"

Goten, who had been trained mostly by cheerful, chirpy Gohan, found it all absolutely horrifying. Bulma and Trunks both found it hilarious.

Letting Vegeta join the tournament had been a mistake. He had no worthy opponent now but Gohan and, to an extent, Android 18, if she chose to power up again (she had asked Bulma to turn off most of her destructive abilities). Standing there amid all the other ordinary mortals, the difference was too stark. And then... Goku.

Goku, the ultimate reminder of Vegeta's glorious, painful past.

Goku, still undefeated, still the bearer of Vegeta's most humiliating secrets.

Goku, who just had to stop a moment to have a deep personal chat with his favourite nemesis.

Goku, bloody Goku. Bulma loved and missed her dearest friend, but, as always, sometimes she wanted to throttle him.

"Bulma. Don't come near me. Take Trunks away."

"But Vegeta-"

"NOW!"

It was a voice she hadn't heard him use for years, a manic glitter that had been absent from his eyes since the day she hurled baby Trunks into his arms. Something was wrong.

That something was Majin Vegeta.

It became the one thing that bugged her the most, when it all spiralled out of control. Had he aimed to hit her, or had he aimed to miss?

Almost all their friends said he must have made the effort to miss her. After all, he was Vegeta. He didn't care about people that didn't belong to him, so he hadn't cared about any other spectator except her.

Only Goku told her, quietly, "He meant to kill you, but at the last moment he couldn't do it."

"I think so to," she said softly. "I'm his greatest weakness, aren't I? Me and Trunks."

"You're his most obvious vulnerability, that's right. If you were dead, he'd have nothing to lose again. He chose the section you were in deliberately, and he aimed right at you, and then he...missed."

"Are you sure he...did it deliberately?"

"I was standing right in front of him, remember? I could see where his hand was aiming. He wanted to prove a point to me. At the very last possible moment he changed his position, by just a fraction. He couldn't do it. And that's why I knew. He was trying so hard to convince me, while we fought, that he didn't care. Because he moved his hand that one fraction of an inch, Bulma, he couldn't fool me. It was all bullshit."

Was it?

Bulma could not witness these epic battles that her friends were always caught in the middle of. She was too fragile to even survive the fallout around them as they released these tremendous energy waves. She had only Piccolo's account of what happened, when Vegeta blew himself up to save her.

Not the world. Just her, and Trunks, and Goku. He only cared about three people enough to die for them.

His suicide had been as pointless as Goku's had been before. And it left Bulma forever wondering – did you aim to hit me, or did you aim to miss?

"Daddy! Dad!" Trunks, out in their front yard, screaming in rage. There was a crater now in the lawn, still burning; all the pretty trees and flowers Trunks' grandmother had planted were smouldering in heaps of ashes; he'd flash-fried several birds and squirrels.

"Daddy! You come back here this instant! DADDY YOU'RE A BASTARD!"

Bulma was crying for the first time in years. She hadn't cried when Yamcha died, or when Goku died, or when Majin Vegeta nearly killed her, or when Vegeta blew himself up. She hadn't cried when Majin Buu destroyed the world. She hadn't even cried when Mirai Trunks died, though it had broken her heart to think of his mother – herself – waiting in that alternate timeline.

But she was crying now, standing by the window looking out at her little son. The windows and walls on that side of the compound were heavily reinforced, because they overlooked Vegeta's gravity simulator, and because they were, well, the rooms of two super-powered Saiyans. Trunks had a vast playroom on the ground floor, where he and Goten played games that required the walls to be cladded in titanium. Under the pretty lawn, Dr Briefs and Bulma had laid a foundation of Saiyan steel, that flexible and infinitely resilient material Vegeta had constructed out of Frieza's original armour. That foundation was the only reason the gravity room did not sink into the center of the earth everytime it was powered up, and it was now the only reason the place was still standing as Trunks threw his temper tantrum.

He was more deeply hurt and more upset than Bulma had ever seen him. Trunks hadn't quite understood Majin Vegeta; like Vegeta and Bulma, his world was about the people he cared about personally, and he had no fucks to spare for people in general if he didn't know them. He hadn't been much fazed by the fight with Buu; he had been devastated when Vegeta died, but he'd remained a strong and steadfast little boy.

This, however, was too much.

Goku had returned to his family, after Buu was finally dead. Vegeta had vanished.

"Why hasn't he come back, Goku?" Bulma had asked in despair after a few days passed. "He's not dead anymore. Trunks keeps waiting for him."

Goku scratched the back of his head in response, and made a small embarrassed sound. Bulma resisted the urge to slap him. "Honestly Bulma, I don't know if I should tell you. You know we were fused together for a long time when we were fighting Buu. I saw stuff in his head that I don't think he'd want me to say to anyone."

"Goku, he's my husband! And he's missing!"

"Yes but he's my..." Goku trailed off, his open smiling face suddenly becoming profoundly serious and sad. "I don't know how to say it. I guess – for a while we were one person. I was Vegeta, and he was me; we shared our entire lives in an instant. It sucks to be Vegeta, you know, Bulma?" he added simply. "There's this voice in your head telling you you're not good enough, and it's your own voice, telling you all the time, til it drives you crazy. He hates himself more than he hates anyone else, including me; and he's always got a reason to hate himself more."

"I know all that, Goku! I don't care! I need him back."

"Yea, but Bulma, look – he hated himself for being happy with you and Trunks, so he decided to kill you both. Then he hated himself for that, so he killed himself instead to make up for it. Then he came back to help me fight Buu, and we had to fuse, and we both thought it wouldn't matter because it would be permanent – but then it wasn't, and now he knows I've been inside his head and I've seen everything, and he hates me like poison. Plus he's also seen the inside of my head, and he's understood he can never beat me, because our lives have been so different that he never had a chance. The part of me he kept was the only thing that let him come back to life, and now he really hates me, yet he really can't, because I'm now part of him."

Goku paused, then grinned. "It's a lot to take in, you know."

Bulma did slap him, which as always took him by surprise. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Enough bullshit, Son Goku! I don't care! I want you to find him for me and bring him back so I can kill him myself!"

"Bulma, he won't let himself be found. If Trunks can't track him, I certainly can't."

"You're going to fucking try. How long have we been friends? I've known you since you were Trunks' age! When have I ever asked you for anything? Look at my son. He sits out there all day, searching for his Daddy to tell him he forgives him. Through rain and wind and night he sits there. Nobody can get near him, not even Goten, not even me."

DADDY IF YOU DON'T COME BACK I'LL HATE YOU FOREVER!

Goku could feel the wild raging smash of pain singing through the atmosphere as he approached Trunks. Everything was still black and burning. The little boy had blasted away everyone who tried to talk to him, injuring Bulma and hurting even Goten. Fortunately Goten was a tough little boy, but he added his pleas to Goku, deeply upset by what was happening to his friend.

"Hey Trunks."

GO AWAY!

Trunks didn't speak, but he didn't have to. He sat cross-legged in the bottom of the blackened crater he had created, his hair still in golden Super Saiyan spikes, his arms folded across his chest in imitation of the father he worshipped. The air around him was smouldering like the inside of a volcano. No wonder nobody could get to him.

Such rage! He was Vegeta's son and more. Mirai Trunks had been powerful, but this little Trunks, conceived by a Super Saiyan Vegeta, was a living weapon of galactic extinction in progress. This boy would not need anyone to unlock his potential. He had what Gohan never had, an untapped core of Saiyan rage and aggression, the unyielding pride of a Saiyan prince. As he searched the world for his father, his fury was keeping them all awake, his pain and loss thrumming through earth's atmosphere, cannoning into every consciousness sensitive enough to feel it.

"Can I talk to you, Trunks? Please?"

"I don't want to talk to anyone except my Daddy." They were first words besides 'go away' that Trunks had spoken for days; saying it aloud made angry tears come to his emerald eyes.

"A little bit of your Daddy is still inside me, if that helps. We were fused, remember?"

"Then find him for me. I can't find him. Why can't I find him, uncle Goku?" Trunks looked up at Goku with such pain in his eyes that Goku reached out and hugged him. Trunks was rarely hugged; his father had embraced him shortly before his pointless suicide, and that had been the first time he remembered Vegeta ever holding him.

Goku was a very comforting person, and it was true his energy signature now had a definite familiar pulse to it, reminiscent of Vegeta's. So Trunks allowed the contact for a moment, then broke away.

"Listen, Trunks. Your Daddy needs a little bit of time alone. Could you give him that?"

Trunks shook his head. "If I do, he won't come back."

"I'm sure he will."

"No you're not. You're lying."

"All right, maybe a little bit. Nobody's ever sure of anything with your crazy Daddy."

"If I keep looking for him, he'll come back. If I give up he'll go away forever."

Goku couldn't answer this time, because there was a high chance Trunks was right.

"But Trunks, you haven't eaten or slept for a few days now. And you've stayed in Super Saiyan all that time. You'll just kill yourself, and your Daddy will lose you. You know what will happen after that?"

Trunks blinked. The thought had not occurred to him before. "He'll be... really angry?"

"And what happens when Vegeta gets angry?"

"The shit hits the ceiling." Trunks repeated what he'd often heard his mother say.

Goku nodded. The part of him that still carried a bit of Vegeta's soul was laughing. The shit hits the ceiling! Is that what she says about me in front of her seven year old?

"Trunks, if you power down now, and get some food and sleep, and go kiss your mother, I promise tomorrow morning we'll go look for your Daddy together."

"You mean it, uncle Goku? You think you can find him?"

"We're the only two people who could possibly find Vegeta if he doesn't want to be found, right? If we join forces, we should be unstoppable."

Trunks smiled, for the first time in days, through a veil of sizzling tears. "Okay, uncle Goku!"

The next day saw Android 18 sitting grumpily in a large chair in the middle of Bulma's vast laboratory. Disconcertingly, the top of her head had been removed, exposing a complex gleaming shell of circuitry above her browline, from which Bulma had plugged in a number of snaking wires attached to huge blinking monitors.

18 had confirmed what Bulma had always suspected – there was nothing mystical about ki. Frieza's army had built scouters which could quantify ki levels, and Dr Gero had built an even more complex version of the same thing into his androids. Human beings could not feel ki unless trained to do so, because they did not have the right palpable senses for it; however it was physically real, a form of high pressure kinetic energy which could be manipulated and controlled as a quantifiable force.

Close contact with Goku, Gohan and then Vegeta and Trunks all her life had sensitised Bulma to these energy signatures, and one of her most involved projects was the tracking and measuring of that mysterious force. She could not sense the ki coming off less powerful beings like Krillin or Tienshinhan, but the four Super Saiyans had such a massive dose of it, it was as if she lived in a live nuclear reactor all the time. She had learned to be able to tell by feel where her son was, and to an extent her husband, if they were within a certain distance of her.

Android 18 had the ability to track specific energy signatures to such a degree that she could pinpoint them across galaxies. As it was manifestly clear Vegeta was not on earth, he had to be tracked down somewhere in space. Goku could only teleport to him if he knew which way to look. The universe was too vast for even Son Goku to seek through it, being limited to seeking in only one direction at a time.

When her protocols were lifted, that limitation did not apply to Android 18. Even so, it was not easy.

"You've got to give me some ideas," she said after about three hours, exasperated. She was surrounded now by monitors flashing data at such a wild speed the processors kept crashing, and Bulma had to keep rebooting them. "The universe is pretty damn big."

"He's probably on one of the old Frieza planets," said Goku after a moment. "He could build his own space pod, but he would only know the coordinates of planets he's been to."

"That's... unusually astute for you, Goku," said Bulma after a moment.

"That's probably not me, honestly. That's a bit of Vegeta left inside me. 18, track through all the planets of Frieza's old empire."

"You realise that's still almost four hundred planets."

"Check the less inhabited ones. I kind of doubt he would choose somewhere with lots of people."

Trunks wasn't speaking. Goten was sitting next to his friend, a silent support that Trunks did not acknowledge, but appreciated nonetheless. He kept his angry purple eyes fixed on Android 18's readouts. The codes were racing along at a ridiculous speed, but Trunks had a genetic makeup uniquely suited to interpreting computer codes at high velocity.

"Over there," he said suddenly. "That sector, 18." He paused. "Please."

It took only five minutes, once Trunks noticed the anomaly. "Found him," said Android 18 triumphantly. "My god, I'm exhausted. Goku...northeast. Two thousand six hundred and nineteen light years."

Hey, Vegeta!

"You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME."

Vegeta stared agape at the last person he wanted to see. Well, the last people, really, for Trunks was there too, staring across the ravine at his father as if not quite sure he was real. They hadn't brought Bulma because they hadn't been sure she could survive in the planet's atmosphere; it had been unusual foresight on Goku's part, and a very good idea, because they moment the appeared they realised the gravity on that planet was seventy-odd times that of earth.

Not much remained of that planet. Once it had clearly housed a civilisation of some kind; now it was bleak and barren, mostly rock and ice, though they could see the vast slow movements of some massive creatures living beneath the frost. The remnants of towers and streets and some kind of vehicles were scattered across the grim grey landscape, rusting in piles.

Frieza planet 172. Vegeta himself had purged this planet, aged fifteen, with an army of three. Frieza had then plundered it of all resources and enslaved all its people. Vegeta honestly didn't remember much about it, except that it was a wasteland now, with no viable resources left. On Frieza's behalf he had cut such a swathe of destruction through the galaxy that it all blurred in his memory into a single sustained flash of destroy, sleep, eat, train, destroy, sleep, eat, train.

Goku and Trunks had appeared some sixty feet away from him, on a plateau across the ravine he was looking into; but even at that distance he could see the echo of his grim childhood memory had also flashed into the other Saiyan's mind.

No, no, no, no, NO.

"Vegeta!"

NO!

Trunks was just about to open his mouth and shout when Goku was suddenly hurled into the air with the force of a furious kick to his face. Caught off guard, Goku flailed wildly to acclimatise to the different gravity and atmosphere so that he could stabilise enough for flight; but Vegeta didn't give him any time. A familiar hand gripped him by the throat, and suddenly they were both plunging at ear-popping velocity towards the hard icy ground.

"Vegeta! Stop!"

He didn't, so Goku powered up furiously, desperately, throwing the other man off for the briefest moment. Less than a heartbeat later he was frantically blocking a flurry of blows, which turned into a flurry of ki blasts, which turned into "GAAAALLLLIC GUUUNNN-"

"VEGETA!"

"-FIIIIIRE!"

"KAMEHAMEHA," roared Goku desperately, and at exactly the same time they experienced a ridiculously inappropriate and intense sense of déjà vu. The two energy blasts crashed into each other, flaring across the landscape; the ground beneath Goku's feet crumbled and sank-

"IF YOU DARE SAY KAI OH KEN-"

"KAI OH FUCKING KEN!"

Vegeta blinked. THAT was not at all a Kakarot yell. That sounded like himself.

The moment of distraction was all Goku needed; the kamahame blast surged into Vegeta's Gallic Gun and sent it hurtling into space, where the sky turned bright pink for a second as both blasts detonated.

Goku tried to shake off the weird doubled memory – for a flash he remembered being on Namek again, facing Vegeta's Gallic Gun for the first time, while at the same time he had seen through Vegeta's eyes, looking down at his own face.

Then a fist was slamming into his face. Blam, blam, blam it pounded; Goku found himself sinking into the ice and rock with the force of each punch.

"Vegeta goddamn it-"

"LEAVE-" blam "ME-" blam "THE FUCK" blam "ALONE!"

"Will you knock it OFF!"

"SHUT-" blam "UP-" blam "KAKAROT!"

And then a small and furious voice screamed, "FINAL FLASH!"

For a second that was almost comical, both men froze, staring directly into each other's eyes. And then they both went hurtling wildly into the air, struck by a massive energy wave that broke up ice and rock and tundra around them so that they were not only being thrown back at high speed, they were also getting pummelled by random chunks of debris.

And then... "FINAL FLASH!"

The second blast had them both scrabbling madly in mid-air, unable to stablise, unable to see, unable to do anything except whirl around in an increasing vortex of massive chunks of ice.

"FINAL FLAAAASH!"

"Goddamit, stop!" roared Vegeta frantically. "Trunks!"

"FINAL-"

"KAKAROT! Help me! He'll kill himself!" Vegeta had never been so close to utter panic in his entire life. Among other things, they were very far out in the arse end of space. If Trunks destroyed the planet, there was nothing else nearby; they would die.

Goku struck out blindly, flailing, towards the sound of Vegeta's voice. He managed to find a limb, which one he had no idea, and teleported to Trunks' side.

"FLAAAA-!"

Vegeta grabbed his son, smothering the beginnings of another burning surge of energy, singing himself severely in the inferno that was the aura of a very small Super Saiyan.

Trunks screamed and thrashed, but he was exhausted and running only on fury and adrenaline. Abruptly he reverted to normal, and began to punch and kick Vegeta like a demon. "Fi...final..." he wheezed.

"STOP! You don't have enough energy left! You'll die if you keep doing that!" Vegeta shook his son violently, in a state of terror that was unfamiliar to him.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" screamed Trunks.

"Trunks, calm down," said Goku wearily. He was now lying on the crumbled ground, one hand still wrapped around Vegeta's ankle. "We came all this way to find your insane, stupid, stubborn asshole of a father. I didn't bring you here to kill him, or yourself."

"YOU'RE A MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD!"

Both adults blinked. "Goddamn it, Bulma," muttered Vegeta. "Trunks, I'm going to put you down, and you're going to tell me what the hell you think you're doing."

Once placed on his feet, Trunks kicked Vegeta in both shins, which didn't hurt his father at all. "God, Kakarot, are you still grabbing my ankle? Let go. Someone tell me what the fuck is going on."

"What are you doing here, Vegeta?" demanded Goku wearily, as Trunks stood with his head hanging and his eyes still burning with tears. "Bulma and Trunks have been worried sick."

"About what?" he said blankly. "About me? Why?"

"Why didn't you come home, Daddy?" asked Trunks at last, plaintively, starting to sob. "I was waiting for you. I waited for days and you didn't come home."

"I..." Vegeta looked so puzzled Goku had to fight to suppress the urge to laugh. This, Goku realised, was probably what he looked like to Vegeta when he was trying to figure something out that the other Saiyan was trying impatiently to explain to him. It was a singularly odd expression on Vegeta's normally mercurial face. "Did you want me to come home?"

"You can be so stupid, Vegeta," said Goku, sitting up. "You always tell me I'm the dumb one. Trunks waited for you for seven days. He wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, wouldn't let anyone near him. He destroyed half of the Capsule Corp compound in a rage because you wouldn't answer him. Did you know he stayed in Super Saiyan form for seven straight days?"

At this Vegeta seized Trunks again and shook him even harder. "You did what? Why?"

"I was trying to find you. I couldn't hear anything so I tried it as a Super Saiyan so I could hear more. I thought if I kept trying, I'd find you eventually, and tell you to come home."

"I don't understand. I tried to kill you both. It was my fault the planet was destroyed by Majin Buu. Why would you want me to come back?"

Trunks kicked him in the shins again, more violently than before. Vegeta exclaimed, "If you start Final Flash-ing all over us again, I will spank you right here. I didn't teach you that so you could throw a tantrum with it. Trunks, do you really want me to come home?"

"YES YOU ... YOU..." Trunks had run out of appropriate names to call his father.

"Does your mother want me to come home?"

"YES!"

"Vegeta, you have to come back with us," said Goku exasperatedly, "because if you don't, Bulma will destroy me."

"She isn't capable of destroying you."

"Oh, yeah? You wait and see what she does to you when you get home. Are you ready?"

"What? Wait-"

"Too late. Going now."

When Goku, Trunks and Vegeta reappeared in the wrecked compound of Bulma's home, a truck fell on Vegeta's head.

"OWWW WHAT THE FUCK-"

"Thank you, 18," breathed Bulma. Hovering above, the Android laconically replied, "No problem." Because she was mechanical, the Saiyans hadn't been able to sense her waiting with a heavy machinery surprise.

The truck was flipped over; Vegeta stood up, clutching his head. Then various missiles starting thumping into him – random tools, chairs, vases, flowerpots, everything a very angry human woman could easily throw, Bulma flung at her prodigal husband. None of them hurt him – the truck hadn't really hurt him – but it served to amuse Goku and Trunks immensely.

"YOU UNBELIEVABLE UTTER PRICK YOU MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD YOU ASSHOLE YOU SELFISH ARROGANT PIECE OF SHIT-"

"Mom's a bit angry," commented Trunks, wide-eyed.

Vegeta stood stock still in the middle of the barrage, too stunned to move. When Bulma ran out of missiles she rushed at him and began to beat at his face and chest and shins with her feet and fists, screaming inarticulately.

"Woman... Woman, stop, you're just hurting yourself," said Vegeta eventually, still looking stunned. It was quite true – hitting Vegeta was like hitting a granite wall, and she was bruising everywhere, but she continued to bash at him nonetheless.

"I told you," said Goku smugly.

"Shut up, Kakarot!"

"Shut up, Goku!"

They spoke at the same time, and then Bulma slapped Vegeta. Bulma had a hearty slap, the sting of which actually could hurt even impenetrable Saiyan skin more than any number of blunt instruments. Vegeta hadn't flinched when the truck fell on his head, but he winced when the slap connected.

It was the coup d'etat; Bulma finally ran out of steam, and stood panting and glaring at Vegeta. "Well?" she demanded. "What have you got to say for yourself, you monumental asshole?"

He gazed at her. He appeared to drink her in, from the crown of her untidy green hair, to the soles of her sneakered feet. And said, "I'm fucking starving. What's for dinner?"

There was a long, long moment of silence.

Then Bulma burst into tears, and threw her arms around the extremely embarrassed Saiyan Prince. Vegeta waited pointedly for Goku to deliberately look away before he slowly returned the embrace, being careful not to accidentally crush her to death.

It was Vegeta who put Trunks to bed that night, because the little boy refused to let go of him. So for the first time in Trunks' life, it was his father who tucked him in, and who waited patiently by his bedside til he was fast asleep, and he could extract his fingers from Trunks' death grip.

"Is this all from that little bit of Goku in you that he was telling me about?" Bulma asked as Vegeta shut the door behind him.

"Probably." In fact he wasn't sure. Among other things, it wasn't clear Goku was that much better a father than Vegeta anyway. Kinder and more affectionate, perhaps, but Saiyans simply didn't make good parents regardless.

"You're still an asshole."

"I know."

Bulma regarded him in the dim light, her arms folded across her chest. "For what it's worth, I forgive you for trying to kill us all."

"Thank you."

"So don't look like that."

"I can't help it. The little bit of Kakarot has a conscience. It's a new experience." The words were wry, but Bulma smiled at him anyway.

"Go take a shower," she commanded. "You stink."

"You're going to give me the pink shirt, aren't you."

"Yup," she said, and comfortably, possessively, tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow.


	6. Chapter 6

The return of Mirai Trunks to his apocalyptic world was a huge relief to his mother, even though to her he had only been gone a few days. The moment he left the time machine he jumped out and embraced her.

"Are you.. are you all right? Did the mission succeed?" she asked anxiously.

"Yes, mother. I changed the past completely. The Androids weren't even the worst thing we found there."

"But... did we get them?"

"Yes. Well, one is dead, one is, er, deactivated, I suppose you could say. And there was one more who was worse than both of them put together, but Gohan killed him."

"And Goku's alive?"

Trunks took a deep breath. The explanation was going to take a long time.

When it was over, Trunks got to the important bit. "Mother, you – I mean the you I met – found a way to remotely detonate the androids."

"Wh... what?" Bulma stared in rising joy at her son. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. I didn't really understand, so I got her to record her instructions." He grinned a little. "Though once she was done, everyone wanted to leave messages for you, so the recording is a lot longer than it needs to be." He put into her hand a tiny data recorder. "You'd better watch it, and we can get started."

"But... if I could have discovered that in that timeline, why haven't I discovered it in this one?"

"Because you needed help from someone else, and that someone is dead."

"Oh! Who was it? Did my father figure it out?"

"No." Trunks grinned. "My father did."

Bulma could only stare, flabbergasted. "Your... you surely don't mean Vegeta!"

"Just watch it, Mom. I'm going to take a bath."

Bulma was almost afraid to play the recording, but she did. The first person to look out at her was herself, sixteen years younger, still brash and beautiful and full of pride. "Hi, future me," said the Bulma in the recording, beaming. "This is really weird, huh? I have so much to say to you, but let's get the important stuff over first."

The Bulma on the screen started to explain a complex procedure, which Mirai Bulma frantically began to take notes on.

"...now if you use the reactor core to power the nucleus-"

"You're holding the wrong one."

The voice took her breath away. Her pen dropped out of her hand. On the screen, the other Bulma turned and glared. "Listen, smartass, I'm the engineer. You stick to being eye candy."

"You're still holding the wrong one, woman. That is Radditz' old power core. You are looking for the one from my old scouter."

"What? No I'm not."

"Yes you – oh for the love of-"

And suddenly, there he was; long dead in her world, having left her with a thousand unanswered questions. There he was, whole and alive and irascible as ever. He snatched the power core from Bulma's hand and waved it at her.

"Can you read this mark? No, you can't. I can read it. And it's not mine. THAT one is mine. If you use this one, you'll just about blow up a cowshed. Got it?" He turned, and looked directly into Mirai Bulma's eyes, waving the correct power core at her. "THIS one. Remember that mark? That's my name."

Oh, she remembered the mark. There were tears blinding her now, but she definitely remembered the mark, because she was wearing Vegeta's old dormant power core attached to a silver chain around her neck. It just looked like a bit of black stone, having been deactivated for so long, but Vegeta's name was stamped into it in the old Galactic code, and she had it by heart.

On the screen, a somewhat embarrassed Bulma coughed and grabbed the power core from his hand. "Yes, well, small mistake. So you activate this..."

The instructions went on. Fighting the urge to rewind the recording as Vegeta moved out of screen, Mirai Bulma focused on the task at hand. By the time the Bulma on screen had finished, she was ecstatic. She was going to save the world. "Trunks!" she yelled. "Trunks!"

Well, Vegeta, she thought to herself, in the end, it's you who saves this world.

Only two days later, Androids 17 and 18 were driving through the desert on their way to their next playground, when they abruptly blew up. Just like that, no fuss, no fanfare. The explosion was vast, wiping out every living thing for miles around; but by that time they hadn't left many living things around them anyway.

Mirai Bulma had lost her only physical memento of Vegeta. She had deliberately waited til the Androids were truly destroyed before she went back to the recording, and played back all the messages from lost friends, greeting her over the space of sixteen lonely years. Krillin. Yamcha. Master Roshi. Yajurobi. Oolong. Her parents. Chichi, and Gohan, and a little boy she didn't know who looked just like a young Goku.

Goku.

"Hey future Bulma," he said, smiling. It was a slightly different Goku from the one she remembered – older, changed somehow. "Thank you for saving my life. The medicine tasted horrible, you know." He paused. "I... don't really know what to say. I wish I hadn't died in your world. We had such fun, didn't we, when we were young? I know I'm dead, but I'm sure my soul is trying its best to look out for you, Bulma. I wouldn't leave you completely alone. You know that, right?"

He smiled at her. She'd missed that smile, goofy, open, full of childlike glee. "You are full of surprises, you know that? Vegeta? Of all people? But I guess it worked out for the best. Trunks is a great kid. He's more than that. He's amazing. He's just like you. He died, unfortunately, but we managed to bring him back. He's tough. You should be really proud."

Bulma growled a little in her throat. Trunks had not told her he'd died and been brought back.

"Listen, I don't know if Vegeta's going to say anything to you. I...think he might, but I don't know. And we're never going to have another chance to talk to you. So I'm just going to tell you in case he doesn't tell you himself."

Goku lowered his voice and whispered, as if somehow the ghost of Vegeta might hear him, there in her other world. Bulma laughed a little and cried a little. Then she whispered, "Thank you, Goku."

Goku's was the last recording. Or so she thought. As she left the recording running while she tried to dry her eyes, another one suddenly came on.

There was no sound, at first, just background static. But Bulma was staring straight into Vegeta's face, and he was staring back at her.

It was probably night, because it was very dark. Bulma recognised the place; he was leaning against the window ledge of her old bedroom in Capsule Corp.

He was in her bedroom.

He didn't say a word, just looked into the recorder, frowning slightly. The recorder tipped a little as he adjusted it, and Bulma saw, for the briefest second, herself in bed, asleep. Beside her was Vegeta's space, rumpled and unoccupied for now.

He was in her bedroom, and he had just gotten out of her bed.

"Oh fuck me," whispered Mirai Bulma, and all at once she was crying again.

"Um," he began self-consciously. Then he swore softly under his breath. "This is fucking stupid."

He turned and stared blankly off to one side, still frowning. Bulma couldn't help but put out her hand, as if to touch the powerful jawline and whipcord neck she had almost forgotten the feel of.

"So hey." He started again.

"Hey, Vegeta," whispered Mirai Bulma.

"I just wanted to. I'm not sure I." He sighed heavily, furious with his inarticulation. "Look, Trunks told me when I died in your timeline, all right? So I know the last thing I said to you was-"

"Get out of my way," murmured Bulma.

"-get out of my way." He paused. Bulma's heart was so full it was bursting. Everything she had had to guess and wonder at for sixteen years was now, in one badly-worded recording, coming brilliantly to light.

"I wanted to... say I'm sorry." Pause. "That's all." Pause again. The pause was very long, but he didn't turn it off. He just kept looking at her. Then, "I'm a complete fucking asshole and you have terrible taste in men."

And then he smiled. In that one smile Bulma had every answer she had been seeking for far too long.

"Take care of yourself, Bulma. Goodbye."

The recording ended. So Bulma rewound it, and played it again.

And again. And again.

"Hey, Vegeta!"

"Shut up, Kakarot."


End file.
